


Written On My Heart

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:56:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7217881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s not a tattoo--it’s a mark. Anyone who travels in time gets one the first time they kiss their soulmate. I don’t know how it works, or why--my people weren’t interested in researching that sort of thing. Something about the exposure to the Time Vortex, probably."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written On My Heart

“Okay, so the alien artifact is at the bottom of the lake,” the Doctor says nonchalantly. “No time to rig up a submersible from spare parts,” and Clara isn’t sure whether he’s kidding or not, “so I’ll have to swim for it.”

“Hang on,” Clara says as he walks, fully dressed, toward the water’s edge. “You can’t go in there like that!”

“Course I can! Don’t need as much air, remember.” 

“You’ll ruin your clothes,” she reminds him, pointing to the murk. 

“Ah! Stupid, stupid Doctor.” He takes off his eggplant bowtie and hands it to her before turning back towards the water.

“Ahem.” She grabs him by the shoulder. “All that fabric is going to drown you, respiratory bypass or no.” she glares at him until he is standing there in his boxers. “Hang on,” she laughs, “I didn’t peg you for the sort to get a tattoo.” She brushes her fingers over his bare pecs. “So, who’s River Song?”

“My soulmate,” he says quietly before shifting into what she recognizes as lecture mode. “And it’s not a tattoo--it’s a mark. Anyone who travels in time gets one the first time they kiss their soulmate. I don’t know how it works, or why--my people weren’t interested in researching that sort of thing. Something about the exposure to the Time Vortex, probably.” He waves his hands about distractedly. “It seems to reset when I regenerate.”

“So, wait, will I get one?” 

“Assuming you kiss the right person or persons.”

“Persons?”

“Remind me to tell you a story about a girl named Rose, a boy named Jack, and a leather jacket.”

“Somehow, I can’t picture you in leather.”

“Different face, remember. Older.”

“Ooh, can’t wait,” Clara says, and gives him a kiss on the cheek (purely for luck, she tells herself). “Now go on; I’m getting cold just looking at you.”

Later that night she looks herself over. Nothing. Kind of relieved, honestly. The Doctor was nice and all, but he wasn’t the type to settle down with. 

***

“Jenny? Vastra?” Clara asks as they watch the new Doctor sleep. “Little random, sorry, but you guys have soulmate marks, right?”

“Of course, Clara.” Vastra smiles indulgently. “Jenny is oddly fond of letting me trace the letters with my tongue.” 

“ _Ahem_. Why do you ask?”

“Just...did you know before? How did you feel?”

“It took both of us some time before we were...comfortable. But we were certainly content enough once we discovered what we already knew.” Jenny takes her wife’s hand. 

“Good. Good.” Clara nods brusquely. “That’s....good.” She thinks she may have been falling in love with the Doctor. Didn’t need to be his soulmate or anything; maybe just shack up, see the galaxy. That sort of thing. But now...she looks over at the new man stretched out on the bed. Well, we’ll see.

***

She’s standing in front of the mirror, naked. She sneaks a glance at her bed. Still snoring. Good. Enough in her life she can’t explain without adding why she was searching her body for the words ‘Danny Pink.’ Nothing so far. Which was good, because she hasn’t worked out a lie for how and why she had gotten a tattoo without leaving her flat. She peers under her breasts, then lifts first one foot, then the other. 

Not that there is anything wrong with Danny. As long as you were content to spend the rest of your life on Earth, pop out two and a half kids, and have done with it. He’s loyal, intelligent, and certainly satisfying in bed. That’s more than enough for most people. God knows it tempts her--some days more than others, she thinks, especially after her most recent tiff with the Doctor. Trouble was, she doesn’t think it’s enough for her. Not anymore.

“You alright in there?” he calls. 

“Just admiring the view,” she sasses him. All clear.

***

“So, those soulmarks,” she asks him, swirling her Cosmopolitan in the lounge car. “Are they always romantic?” She can taste the alcohol on her lips, wants to taste him.

“Not always.” He turns away. 

“Personal experience?”

“I think Jamie may have been asexual. And the Master was...rarely romantic.”

“Old friend?”

“Old enemy, older friend. What is it you pudding brains say these days?” His eyebrows furrow majestically. “It’s complicated. Which reminds me,” he continues. “Sometimes the mark doesn’t come in fully-formed. Usually because you aren’t ready for each other yet.”

“Emotionally?”

“In a matter of speaking. When I met Ace, she was seventeen. At some point I kissed her hand. Courtly gesture, nothing more.” His eyes flick back to hers. “And yet there was her name, faintly traced in blue. Over time, the mark...deepened.”

“I see.” She elbows him. “Suppose the age gap is something you have to worry about with time travel.”

“You’d be surprised.” And they leave it at that. 

***

“I still don’t see what’s so bad about de-aging,” humphs Clara Oswald, now young enough to look like his granddaughter.

“You have a hard enough time keeping up and reaching high places as it is. And you are somehow _even more likely_ to run off and get yourself into scrapes. (“Ouch,” she hisses as he peroxides her knee.) Literally.” He plasters the small cut and presses a kiss to her leg. “All better now,” he quips dryly, standing up.

“You’re mocking me,” she announces stubbornly, feet swinging back and forth.

He bends back down, placing his hands on her shoulders, because she’s right--she usually is. “It’s dangerous because people aren’t meant to stay young forever. Nobody is, not even me--and especially not you. Because if I thought if I could keep you around forever, I might try, and that isn’t healthy.”

“What if I _wanted_ to stay forever?” Her voice is impetuous, determined.

“It wouldn’t be healthy for _me_ , Clara.” He pats her on the head. “Now, run along and play, or whatever it is children do this millennium. Go explore the TARDIS. Wait,” he countermands himself, remembering how exactly she had shed two decades in the first place, “don’t explore the TARDIS. Never mind,” he reverses course yet again, contemplating the terror of a rugrat underfoot as he tries to plug the temporal leak, “explore the TARDIS carefully. That should be safe enough until it wears off.”

***

The next morning he grabs Clara by the hand. “We’ve got to see Missy. Now.”

“What the hell? Why?”

“Language.” He holds a hand to her lips to quiet her; she kisses it out of spite. “Because she can put you back.” He recalls having been aged by the Master, several lifetimes ago. 

“What’s the hurry? I bet there are all kinds of places on the TARDIS I can squeeze into now. Cool places. Like the ice cream parlour under the tennis courts. I had to take a fireman’s pole to get there, but that was fun, and they had raspberry which is my favorite and I had _three scoops_ (“Explains a lot,” he mutters, ignored.) and then I ran around the gardens until I was nearly sick and I don’t like Missy because she tried to turn me into a Dalek and that isn’t very nice and--”

“Shush!” he says at last. “Clara Josephine Oswald, we are going to see Missy, and she is going to put you back to your right age, and that’s final.” 

Clara’s death glare is interrupted by a familiar cackle and the sizzle of a vortex manipulator. “Oh, mercy me! Is that the poppet!” Missy places one hand melodramatically in front of her open mouth. “How absolutely precious! Your grandad should really write more often,” she notes to Clara, holding a gleaming white cube. “Got to keep in _touch_ somehow.” She skips around the room. “And now you need my help to undo it.” The Doctor nods, stonily silent. Missy rolls her eyes. “Fine, but only because she reminds me of my daughter at that age.” She kneels and points to her cheek. “And only if she gives Auntie Missy a kiss.”

“Fine!” Clara stomps over with all the gumption she can muster and puts it into a peck on the cheek.

“There, there, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?” Missy produces a device and zaps Clara with it, knocking the girl unconscious. “She’ll be fine in ten hours or so. Plenty of time for us to catch up,” she purrs.

“No.” The Doctor glowers at her until she leaves.

***

“Doctor, do you see anything different about me?” 

Something. Something obvious. He racks his brain for precious seconds, sitting down to consider the matter more fully... “You aren’t wearing a blouse.”

“I have a tattoo. On my breast. In Gallifreyan.”

“Ah. So you do.” It’s quite beautiful, really, the swirls of purple-red ink. And her nipple worked into the design flawlessly. He’d have to compliment the artist.

“Doctor, stop staring.”

“It’s always mixed messages with you,” he grouses, eyes redirecting back up above her crossed arms.

“It’s one of those soulmate marks, isn’t it?” He nods, slowly. “Please tell me it’s your name and not Missy’s. Because I really don’t think I could deal with that.”

“It’s mine.” 

“So. Soulmates.” Their eyes lock. “I’m guessing not the platonic kind.”

“Probably not.”

She pounces into his lap and claws at his shirt, which triggers a memory. “I never told you my middle name. But you called me by my full name anyway. When I was tiny. Which meant you _knew_.” She wags a finger at him. “Sly old devil.” She strips off his jacket and shirt to confirm her suspicion. 

“Of course I knew,” he chides her. “My lovely Clara, how could I not know?” He cups her left breast, the one marked with his name, with a possessive hand, drawing her down to suckle and worry it with cool, damp lips. Her fingers thread into his silvered hair, pulling him closer still.

“How did we not do this sooner?” she whispers, pressing kisses into the crown of his head.

“Hang on,” he asks, fiddling with the ties, “are those my pajama pants?”

“The flannel feels really nice on my bare skin. Mm, and so do your hands,” she adds as she wriggles out of them. She reaches for his fly, manages to get him out and erect. “Tell me what you want...and maybe I’ll give it to you.”

“I want--” He stops to moan as her thumb grazes his tip. He gazes at her, not used to voicing this particular desire. “I want to make you come for me, want to fuck you until you scream for me.”

“Funny,” she kisses him, “that’s what I want, too.” She slides down onto his cock with a grin. “Must be a soulmate thing.”

“That must be it,” he replies, voice gravelly with lust. She laughs, and he quiets her with a kiss, pulling her close, their marks pressing together as they make love in the timelessness of the Vortex.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy anniversary, Imaginary Golux. 
> 
> Also brief headcanon: in the Library, when River whispers the Doctor's name to Ten, and he says "There's only one time I could have told you that," it's because he realizes that she must be the soulmate of a future regeneration, and that's why he trusts her. You're welcome. 
> 
> And, for the curious: Susan's grandmother, Jamie, the Master, Sarah Jane, ???, Peri, Ace, ???, Rose/Jack, Rose, River, Clara. But all of them probably have "The TARDIS" written somewhere on their skin.


End file.
